The invention is in the field of portable life support systems, and particularly directed to life support systems which are alternatively attachable to a stretcher, a transport vehicle, or adapted for stand-alone use in a hospital.
Advances in medical technology over recent years has led to improved patient care and savings of numerous lives. Medical transport facilities have played a large role in quickly transporting patients to hospital facilities and in providing enroute emergency medical treatment. Emergency transport of the critically ill or injured patient has become an essential element of our health care system. This has led to the advent of the mobile intensive care unit, fixed wing and helicopter transport, and geographically designated shock-trauma centers. The sophistication of emergency medicine has developed rapidly and placed emergency medicine in a specialty field of its own. As part of the growing demands of emergency medicine, there is a need for a portable life support system which may be field-operable as well as operable in transport vehicles such as helicopters, airplanes, and ambulances. Larger aircraft as well as ambulance or other wheeled vehicles generally are spacious enough to be equipped with integrally mounted life support systems such as EKG and defibrillator apparatus, suction devices, oxygen, IV supplies, and the like. It is generally not feasible, however, to bring such life support systems as a total package to areas inaccessible by the transport vehicle. Specific portable units have been developed which permit a selective and often inadequate application of medical technology to patient needs. Moreover, the mechanics of transporting the individual life support systems both within a vehicle and for field use has not been solved in an efficient and economical manner. Often, portable units are simply carried by technical personnel for field use and placed beside the patient and manually carried beside the patient during transport.